Talking about Art in Urban-landscape brings about many overlapping thoughts in our minds.
To begin with, for a better understanding we will classify it broadly in two categories:
Commissioned Art – Where artists are invited, patronized or commissioned formally by a public (Eg. Urban Art Commission) or a private body to create and display their art for pre decided public venues, spaces or built forms.
Eg. City Squares, public parks, traffic islands, transport hubs – railway stations, bus terminals , airports etc. monument complexes, tourist places and not so attractive urban built forms in any city – flyovers, foot over bridges, subways etc.
Signage or way finding markers are also a graphic form of urban art which assist the people in finding their ways and routes while travelling within the city or the town. It also plays an important part in providing information about the city to the visitors and also it plays a vital role in adding to the character of the city by its sheer presence in mostly every street, nook and corner of the city.
The beautiful Frescos painted on the entire outside and inside walls of almost all the buildings and havelis in the towns of the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan is a very interesting example of commissioned art in the past.
The rich traders of Shekhawati who travelled a lot, commissioned the local artists to recreate the interesting scenes and episodes experienced by them during their long journeys.
These Frescos were painted in a very distinct art style and were storyboards narrating the traveler’s stories to the women, children and the locals who did not have a chance to travel and were mostly confined to their respective towns.
The non commissioned or the informal urban art can be experienced and seen as art by a community in their personal premises mainly to decorate, beautify and establish their status or to symbolize a festival or a ceremony eg. Rangoli an age old form of traditional art done at a large scale during festivals.
Art or in an attempt to create art – the large scale lighting decorations and temporary structures like puja pandals, marriage pandals during the festive seasons have the ability to change the aesthetics of a cityscape due to their sheer presence, numbers and scale, which cannot be ignored.
Worldwide there are sections of society who have felt oppressed, have not been accepted in the mainstream and have had their grievances against the system. According to them neither the media or any other public forum has ever been interested in talking and sensitizing the world about the issues they have been facing.
Some of the individuals or groups then started expressing their views in the form of illustrations on the walls, floors and ceilings of public spaces and other public property like trains buses etc.
These illustrations contain graphic and textual representation of ideas and beliefs which are considered taboos, socially unacceptable and rebellious in nature. Racial or any other kind of discrimination, sexual abuse, gay/lesbian rights, drugs, free religion and expression etc. and many such issues are seen in this form of ‘public art’
According to the mainstream thinkers graffiti is considered negative, dark and also an illegal practice that scars the public property, but some of these expressionists have taken graffiti to the next level of visual communication by virtue of their skill and creativity of these illustrations, that it has now been given the status of ‘art’ and have been granted the freedom to express in many countries.
Urban Art in any form, method or style speaks to the masses at large and they make the onlooker in understanding and experiencing the pulse of the city better. Besides making a city or a town aesthetically pleasing and imparting information, urban art at a subconscious level also adds to the happiness quotient of the residents and the visitors!
Published in:ISOLA-Newsletter-January-2017